Camera comparison: Z5P vs S6 edge+ vs PRIV

We love taking photos, so we're always excited to find out how the best camera phones stack up against each other. To find out, we’ve taken the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium, Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ and PRIV by BlackBerry out and about to put their cameras through their paces.

Indoor photography

Our first comparison tested how well the phones take photos indoors, under artificial lights. A lot of cameras find it hard to take clear, colourful photos under fluorescent bulbs, but these three phones did pretty well.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium

Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+

PRIV by BlackBerry

The photo from the S6 edge plus looks a little better than the other two thanks to brilliant sharpness. The colours from the Z5 Premium are deep, while the PRIV’s photo looks bright, albeit a little yellow.

Daytime photography

Our second comparison was the easiest test for the three phones – daytime photos. With the sun giving plenty of light, everything should look good.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium

Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+

PRIV by BlackBerry

All these shots look great for different reasons, so picking your favourite will come down to what you like in a photo.

Night photography

Our next comparison tested how these phones cope when the sun goes down. Night shots taken on phones are usually grainy and dark, but our three phones all did better than expected.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium

Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+

PRIV by BlackBerry

The Z5 Premium has captured some really good colours, but without optical image stabilisation to keep the camera steady through the long exposure, it looks pretty blurry.

The PRIV’s shot is by far the brightest, but when you zoom in you see that it’s washed out a lot of colour.

The S6 edge+, on the other hand, can’t really be faulted. All the important parts of this shot look sharp, bright, and colourful.

4K video recording

For our final comparison, we wanted to test 4K video recording. It’s incredible that smartphones can catch so much detail in video. And now with the Z5 Premium’s 4K screen, you can watch those beautiful home movies on your phone.

You can check out our sample clips towards the end of the video above, but here’s a summary of what we saw.

The video shot by the PRIV looks cinematic, with deep, realistic colours. If we’re really critical, though, it looks like the phone’s over-sharpened things.

The S6 edge+ looks much better for sharpness and has really good depth of colour. But the video’s not too bright and there’s quite a bad banding effect on the stripes of the building in the background.

The Z5 Premium, however, is almost perfect. As we mentioned earlier, the phone doesn’t have optical image stabilisation, so the video looks a bit shaky, but this can easily be sorted out with a tripod. And, of course, the Sony is the only phone with a 4K screen, so you can see all the incredible detail while on the move.

Our verdict

These three phones have amazing cameras, but the Z5 Premium is so good we shot the entire video above on the smaller Xperia Z5, which has the same camera.